A Manual for Surviving a Weird World

Chapter 413 When the real becomes fake, the fake becomes real.

"So they were underworld messengers."

Seeing that the white ghostly figure floating three feet above the ground showed no sign of attacking him, Ning Zhe boldly stepped forward and looked the ghostly messenger carrying the lantern up and down.

"Although the clothes are quite thick, you can still see the well-developed muscle lines on his body. It should be Jang Geun Suk or Jang Geun Gyun."

Ning Zhe looked up and saw a long, bright red tongue hanging down.

This person has a white face painted with the image of an impermanent figure, purple blush on his cheeks, black lips, and downcast eyes with large dark circles like a panda. His fangs are sharp and long, and through his illusory body, one can vaguely see a stone mill and two bags of bean dregs behind him.

"If you paint a white face of the Impermanence, does that really make him Impermanence...?" Ning Zhe pondered for a moment, then suddenly heard a series of mumbling sounds coming from the mouth of the White Impermanence, as if he had something to say to him.

"Can you speak like a human?" Ning Zhe pointed to his ear and made a NO gesture: "I can't understand your gibberish."

Bai Wuchang seemed unable to understand what he was saying. After watching Ning Zhe's hand movements and pondering for a moment, as if he remembered something, the semi-transparent ghostly figure carrying a lantern passed through the wall, floated out of the house and came to the courtyard, bent down and grabbed a handful of soil from the ground.

"Mud?" Ning Zhe was taken aback.

Bai Wuchang handed the mud in his hand to Ning Zhe, and pointed to his mouth with his other finger, making a chewing motion as if he were eating.

"You want me to eat mud?" Ning Zhe pondered for a moment, then took the mud and stuffed it into his mouth.

The soil in the countryside was bitter and astringent, and the taste was really not good. Ning Zhe frowned and chewed a few times. The White Impermanence in front of him was still babbling in gibberish, but strangely enough, Ning Zhe understood it.

Bai Wuchang said that he was Zhang Genjian. Qin Shou painted the mask of Wuchang for him, so he became the way he is now. His feet are always three feet off the ground. He can fly without wings and his semi-transparent body can pass through walls.

And most importantly, after becoming a ghost messenger, he could see 'ghosts'.

"On the way here, I saw many villagers squatting in their houses eating something, which looked like tofu," Zhang Genjian, the White Impermanence, mumbled. "I thought that this tofu must be the offerings you provide to the ghosts, so I came to the mill to find you."

As he spoke, Zhang Genjian shook the lantern and token in his hand and mumbled, "I'm a ghost messenger now. All the ghosts in the village are afraid of me. With me escorting you, you can set out the offerings with peace of mind."

"Thanks." Ning Zhe chewed on mud and mumbled his thanks, then typed a few lines on his phone to explain the current situation to Feng Yushu.

He's talking nonsense now; Feng Yushu can't understand him.

The two sorted out the remaining tofu from the mill, pushed it out of the courtyard gate in a small cart, and a tall, thin, pale ghostly figure floated in front of them, carrying a lantern to clear the way for them.

It's already dark, and the dead who haven't received any offerings are starving and might burst out of their coffins at any moment to find food.

No, it's already out.

The three of them walked to an intersection, and Zhang Genjian, the White Impermanence floating in front, suddenly stopped.

Feng Yushu looked ahead with some doubt. By the light of the lantern in the ghost messenger's hand, she could clearly see a boy in a short jacket standing in the middle of the intersection. His pale face had a silly expression, and his eyes were staring at the steaming tofu on the cart, his mouth watering.

"It's just a little devil, thankfully not fierce." Zhang Genjian muttered, "If it were an old ghost, it would be so hungry that it probably wouldn't even care about me, a ghost messenger, and would just come up and kill me." Bai Wuchang waved the token in his hand, floated to the middle of the intersection, grabbed the little devil by the collar, asked Ning Zhe for a piece of tofu, stuffed it into its mouth, and sent the little devil home.

The three followed the little devil into a house. Inside the main room were three coffins, two large and one small, containing the bodies of a family of three. The little devil ate the tofu and then crawled back into his coffin to sleep, while the two adults were still hungry.

Ning Zhe took some more tofu, put it in a bowl, placed it in front of the two adults' coffins, and then turned and left with Feng Yushu.

After a few minor mishaps, under the escort of the underworld officials, Ning Zhe distributed all the remaining tofu. Along the way, he occasionally encountered a few villagers who had woken up from hunger, but Bai Wuji used the tofu to send them home.

Whether it was just his imagination or not, on the way back, Ning Zhe felt that Zhang Genjian's face was getting paler and paler.

"Those ghosts seem to be getting more and more afraid of me."

Zhang Genjian floated to Ning Zhe's side and mumbled something in English:
"The first little ghost didn't even run away when it saw me. I just reached out and picked it up. But the ghosts after me were more and more afraid of me. At first, they would be scared away by me, but the ghosts that came into contact with me later didn't even dare to run away. They would just stand there trembling."

As Zhang Genjian spoke, he couldn't help but feel a little smug. He used to be afraid of ghosts, but now the ghosts are afraid of him.

Seeing his smugness, Ning Zhe didn't say much, but he felt a little uneasy. Was it really a good thing to paint a mask and become a ghost messenger?
"By the way, why did I only see you come out alone? Where are Ding Wei, Miao Miaomiao, and your brother?" Ning Zhe asked.

"I was the first to finish painting the face mask; Qin Shou sent me out to help you," Zhang Genjian muttered.
"Qin Shou said that it is much more difficult to draw a face on a living person than on a paper figure, but the effect is also better. He spent a long time drawing my face. I guess the others are still in that little house."

“I see…” Ning Zhe said thoughtfully, “We’ve finished our work here, but Xu Beichen is still outside. Why don’t you go help him first? We’ll go find Qin Shou behind the stage ourselves.”

“Alright.” Zhang Genjian thought about it and agreed with Ning Zhe: “After my scare, no more ghosts are seen wandering around the village at night. It should be safer for you to go there now.”

"Then I'll go find Brother Xu. Be careful walking at night."

After saying that, Zhang Genjian carried the lantern and floated past the house, disappearing from sight.

Watching Bai Wuchang leave, Ning Zhe spat out the dirt in his mouth. Feng Yushu thoughtfully handed him a bottle of soy milk in a mineral water bottle, which he used to rinse his mouth, and he felt better afterward.

"Ugh, this is awful." Ning Zhe took another sip of soy milk and let out a long sigh: "That Qin Shou is indeed no simple man."

"Yes." Feng Yushu nodded and said, "When I first saw that white impermanence, I thought it was a real underworld messenger. I was quite startled."

"The key is that the masks he paints not only imitate the appearance of the underworld messengers, but also enable the person whose face is painted with the ghost to truly possess some of the characteristics of the underworld messengers, including passing through walls, flying off the ground, and being feared by other ghosts."

Ning Zhe thought for a moment and added, "Moreover, these characteristics seem to be becoming more and more real over time."

In concrete terms, this means that the villagers of Yizhuang are becoming increasingly afraid of Zhang Genjian.

It's like being afraid of real ghosts.

(End of this chapter)